


The Albatross

by rfsmiley



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Boats and Ships, Gift Fic, I have a yen for boating tales and I make no apologies, Idiots in Love, Implied Sexual Content, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), M/M, Timeline Shenanigans, Travel, Vacation, heavy-handed symbolism, oh and the sexual tension, the only real thing from LHOD is the forced travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-19
Updated: 2020-10-01
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:22:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 16,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26552035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rfsmiley/pseuds/rfsmiley
Summary: Two voyages, separated by about three hundred years.Or: the hike from the Left Hand of Darkness, if the husbands had done it on the ocean instead, and then also gone on a cruise afterwards.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 226
Kudos: 226
Collections: Good Omens (Complete works)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [everybody_lives](https://archiveofourown.org/users/everybody_lives/gifts).



> This is a gift fic for that lovely bean books-and-omens, also known as everybody_lives, who has made being in this fandom a joy. if you haven't seen their incredible art please do go give it some love. I admit that this piece for them is perhaps a little bit of a messy basket of goodies - forced travel shenanigans, vacation pining likely brought on by covid, and a whole bunch of motifs, among other things - but it was hecka fun.
> 
> A massive thank you to [darcylindbergh](https://archiveofourown.org/users/darcylindbergh/pseuds/darcylindbergh/works) (aka forineffablereasons) who betaed this brilliantly. The last two chapters are still getting a rewrite due to her spot-on insights and I'm sure will be the better for it (any remaining errors are of course my own). But I do think this first chapter is ready to be posted!
> 
> If you're distrustful of WIPs, I do have a complete draft and I anticipate that this will be finished in its entirety in a couple of weeks at the latest! If you'd rather return then, I understand.

“The colonies,” Crowley said, for the third time.

“Yes, I know,” said Aziraphale, unhappily. It really didn’t bear thinking about.

“The _American_ colonies,” Crowley said, as if to make sure.

“Yes, Crowley, _must_ you be so – ”

“For how long?”

“Well, obviously I don’t know,” said the angel. He was already tired. Crowley always, without fail, had more questions about Aziraphale’s assignments than he ever had himself. “I’ll stay as long as I need to.”

“But that could be _decades!_ ”

Wincing, Aziraphale drained the rest of his wine, wondering whether he should have suggested a more private venue for this discussion. Currently, they were huddled in the back corner of a tavern, an old haunt of theirs called the Pip and Pear, where the barkeep knew them well enough to bring a fresh bottle of red every hour. Given its popularity, they were usually ignored by the other staff and patrons – which was, of course, just how they liked it. Tonight, however, the demon was drawing glances with the volume of his incredulity, which was rising well above the hum of the other conversations.

“That was the implication, yes.”

“ _Decades,_ ” Crowley repeated, “of an angel, faffing about in the New World, getting that fresh, slave-tilled earth on his boots.” He sat back, spread his hands for emphasis. “Sorry, but I can’t picture it.”

“Angels go wherever they are needed,” said Aziraphale. “The Holy Spirit is omniscient and omnipresent, Crowley.”

“That might be true, but this particular angel,” Crowley said, taking a moment to toss back the rest of his own drink, “is one that gets a bit persnickety when he has to go any length of time without proper clotted cream.”

“That’s uncalled for,” said the persnickety angel, irritated.

Cup in hand, Crowley leaned forward again and regarded him shrewdly. “You realize that they’re on the cusp of a revolution over there. ‘S imn – imminim – not gonna be long, at this point. War before the end of the century. Probably.”

“That’s exactly why they’re sending me,” Aziraphale found that he was still a bit ruffled. “I’m supposed to go and see if I can calm things down.”

“To the _colonies,_ ” the demon repeated wonderingly.

Even angelic patience had its limits. “I believe that is what I have been telling you, yes.”

Crowley drummed his fingers for a moment, looking pensive. And then he said, “How are you even going to get there?”

“What?”

His companion fished for a bottle, and refilled both of their glasses. “It’s a long way, angel,” he said. “Somewhere between two and three months by sea, if I recall. Even you can’t fly for that long.”

Aziraphale frowned, considering this. It was true. Flying anywhere on the mortal plane required just enough physical effort that the corporation suffered as a result. Centuries ago, he had learned this firsthand, after a five day journey across the Bay of Bengal had caused him to pass into a dead exhaustion. It had taken nearly as long to recover. Vivid memories of that flight still plagued him: the long hours of exertion, the unforgiving water below, and always the strangling fear of losing his strength altogether and tumbling out of the sky –

“I’ll have to book passage on a ship,” he said abruptly. “There must be one departing for Jamestown soon.”

Crowley scoffed. “You can’t pass for human on a ship.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

The demon gesticulated, sketching his point in the air. “Have you ever been in the hold of a ship during a voyage? Hundreds of men, no privacy, everyone’s, y’know, bodily functions highly visible –”

“I have been on Earth,” said Aziraphale, bridling under his skepticism, “for nearly _six thousand years –_ ”

“ – sure, and in all that time, I don’t think you’ve ever even taken a nap, let alone –”

“I don’t need to _nap_. Nor will I have to, even at close quarters. I shall just – deflect suspicion.”

“Well, that’s just it, isn’t it? Can you dewhotsit for _three months,_ in a, a box, with two hundred strangers?” Crowley stifled a burp. “Because that’s what you’d have to do.”

Weariness at the very prospect suffused them both, and they sat in silence for a moment. The angel rather regretted inviting Crowley for a drink at all. He didn’t know why he had felt the need to, if he was being perfectly honest with himself. Far better to have just slipped away unseen. But then, they had both been in London for several decades now, haunting a series of favorite taverns and parks and theaters together when they could spare the time, and it had seemed strangely important to say goodbye.

Foolishness, he told himself sternly. Sentimentality.

“Okay, here’s a thought. Try not to get your drawers in a bunch, please,” Crowley said, cutting into his thoughts. Oddly, he sounded more sober than he had for at least the better part of an hour. “But what if we went together?”

“What?” said Aziraphale, scandalized.

“You know you can’t fly the whole way there,” the demon pointed out. “And I’m better company than a ship full of men.”

Aziraphale struggled for the proper response to this, and settled on, “Don’t you have your own assignments to do?”

“Well, since we’re on the topic,” said Crowley, and he smiled.

*

“Oh, for Heaven’s sake,” said Aziraphale, exasperated, when he looked up from his book.

His infernal companion grinned at him, the palpable self-satisfaction as old as time. “Drink, angel?”

“You know, when I suggested that you pack light,” the angel went on, ignoring the question in favor of glaring over the rims of his reading glasses, “I regret to inform you that this isn’t what I meant.”

 _Light_ was an overstatement for the spectacle he was looking at; Crowley, standing over their two reserved pool chairs, had apparently come very close to packing nothing at all. In one hand he bore a frosted margarita, crusty with salt, while in the other, a frothy, rose-colored concoction threatened to lose its precarious sliver of peach. He was currently offering the latter to the angel as if the treat could somehow distract from his almost-nudity, prevented only by his sunglasses and, some distance below, one straining scrap of black swimwear.

“Don’t you like it?” he said, and he moved his hips in a fashion that made Aziraphale briefly raise his eyes heavenward.

“It’s certainly netted you quite the audience.”

This much, at least, was true. All along the avenue to the bar, their fellow sunbathers were wearing similar expressions, quirks to the mouth and darting gazes that meant full consciousness of the amount of skin on display – though they might also be eyeing the demon’s painful sunburn, which, Aziraphale knew, had mottled Crowley’s back like a pair of denuded wings.

He caught another glimpse of the angry skin as the demon turned to look, giving a little wave. One of their younger voyeurs gave them a thumbs up, a gesture that always, without fail, made Aziraphale’s insides twist uncomfortably. Not the sunburn, then. He looked away.

“What a good sport,” said Crowley cheerfully, taking a seat on the other pool chair. As he leaned back, he let his legs sprawl open, deliberately insinuating. “I won’t even spoil it by telling you about the lecherous envy pouring out of him.”

“How very considerate of you,” said Aziraphale dryly, accepting his drink.

“Anyway, that’s not what I asked,” said Crowley, and even through the lenses of those expensive sunglasses, the angel could feel the sudden heat of his gaze.

It was easier now, in the aftermath of Armageddon, to not blush at such open angling, though Aziraphale found that he still preferred to compose himself with a sip of his daiquiri. Then he said, almost delicately, “I would say you didn’t need to go to all this _effort_ to impress.”

Crowley laughed and wriggled further down into the chair, legs butterflied obscenely. Aziraphale wondered how that horrid sunburn was tolerating the posture. Not for the first time, he also felt the creeping regret for not having purchased his own pair of sunglasses, especially when, sometimes, it seemed preferable to be able to shield the direction of one’s gaze.

“Thank you for fetching the drink,” he said, which earned him a dismissive flutter of fingers.

“Don’t mention it.”

“I have to say that we do seem to be a bit on the early side, as far as carousing goes.” This was, he felt privately, a little bit of an understatement, as they were the only two people by the pool with drinks in their hands.

“Angel, we are, in fact, on a cruise ship,” said Crowley, amused. “A floating indulgence of vices. The original pitch for it, if I remember correctly, was round-the-clock sloth, gluttony, and greed, and the execution surpassed my highest hopes. As an example,” and he gestured back the way he had came, “that poolside bar is open for the simple reason that it never closed, which means,” he added, pointedly, “that if I’d like a margarita at ten o’clock in the morning, no one is going to say a word about it.”

“It’s not ten,” said Aziraphale. “It’s just gone half past nine.”

“Even better.”

“However, if that was your pitch downstairs, I do think you glossed over some pitfalls,” the angel went on. “Namely, the fact that a pleasure cruise can also embody some virtues. Generosity, if gifted to someone, for example.” When his companion didn’t reply, he added, “Uninterrupted time with cherished company.”

“Angel, stop. I’m gonna get hives,” Crowley grumbled, shifting restlessly. “Look, I’m already red.”

“You’re going to be red for the rest of the week, if the state of your back is any indication.”

“Oy, that’s not my fault,” the demon protested. “I’m rubbish at healing magic. _You_ know that.”

Aziraphale did know that, quite intimately, but he forced his mind away from the flood of memory. “I did tell you to use sunblock yesterday.”

“I’m a _serpent._ I don’t need sunblock.”

Inspiration struck. “Well, regardless of whether or not you need it,” he said, trying to keep the glee out of his voice, “we should probably lotion each other up at some point this morning. If only to deflect suspicion.”

The demon lowered his sunglasses and looked at him in silence.

“You said it yourself once, about ships, do you remember?” Aziraphale continued happily, undeterred. “It was three hundred years ago, but still accurate, I think. ‘Hundreds of men, no privacy, everyone’s bodily functions highly visible –’”

“All right, _all right_ ,” Crowley said. “The bottle’s in the bag. Let me finish my drink.”

It was, all things considered, a particularly excellent peach daiquiri.

*

“Of all of your infernal endeavors,” Aziraphale said, “this has to be one of the most ridiculous,” and though he had meant it to sound chastening, he couldn’t seem to keep the corners of his mouth from twitching as he picked his careful way across the rolling deck.

Crowley grinned back at him, running a careless hand over the fresh black paintwork. “Don’t you like it?” he inquired. “I think it looks rather sharp.”

“Flashy,” said Aziraphale. “Overstated.”

“Sexy,” Crowley corrected, his grin widening. “Glamorous.”

The angel tried not to smile back at him, and failed. It was, admittedly, an impressive achievement, to have acquired a boat in no more than three days – although, of course, he had anticipated something like this. When Crowley had said to meet him at the Portsmouth docks on Friday morning, it had been clear that some kind of watercraft would play a role in whatever extravagant plot the demon was hatching.

Still, the sight of that lithe figure, alone at the helm of a boat, his hair tied back, his sleeves rolled up to the elbows, had been arresting in a way that Aziraphale had not been prepared for. Upon his arrival, it had startled some sleeping thing in his chest, causing it to beat wildly and recklessly, like some great bird trying to take flight.

“Hullo,” Crowley had called, waving to him. “Ready for a voyage?” and Aziraphale had thought, quite distinctly, that he was not.

Instead of fleeing, however, he had taken a deep breath, and gone down to meet the demon.

Though it had taken some maneuvering to get Aziraphale aboard, they now stood facing each other, bobbing with the ebb and flow of the waves, on the deck of one of the smallest crafts he had seen. Twelve meters in length or less, it was dwarfed by many of the other ships in the harbor; its spread of canvas was similarly small, comprised of only a handful of sails rippling in the wind, affixed to a single mast. The angel was trying to take it all in, his genuine interest competing with his astonishment.

“She’s the _Albatross,_ ” said Crowley, following his gaze. “She’s something called a cutter. Belonged to a harbor pilot. Took big ships through the Bristol Channel until the day before yesterday.”

“Let me guess,” said Aziraphale, finding his voice. “He suddenly discovered that he wanted to sell her.”

“You know, it’s a funny thing,” his companion mused, “but he did.”

Aziraphale felt his lips twitch again. When Crowley was this blatantly pleased with himself, it was very nearly infectious. But no: it would never do, to encourage him. “Do you even know how to sail?”

“A bit,” the demon said easily. “Enough to get us where we need to go. Not that it matters. I paid someone to rig her for us. All we need,” and he twiddled his fingers in a way that was probably meant to look suave (and actually, Aziraphale thought, looked rather twee), “is the wind behind us.”

He made a gesture, and in the same instant, their sails tautened, filling with air. Aziraphale caught the baffled expression of some of the other men on the Portsmouth docks, glancing from their own limp spread of canvas to the suddenly billowing sheets of the _Albatross,_ but the demon paid them no attention. His eyes were fixed on his passenger (as if, Aziraphale thought shyly, there was only one opinion that mattered).

Looking away, the angel cast his eyes along the various ropes, the complex rigging. His untrained eye had no idea what to look for – what signs meant danger, whether the knots were correct – but he took some consolation in knowing that Crowley had not been the one to prepare them.

“I suppose we might as well try it for a lark,” he said, wavering. “I mean, human ships make the crossing all the time.” After all, if mortals could cross the vast and unforgiving oceans and live to tell the tale, the two of them could easily be snug in Jamestown before the next full moon.

“They do,” Crowley agreed. “What do you think, angel? Up for a bit of a pleasure cruise?”

Aziraphale looked back at him. The demon was nearly alight with his pleasure, flushed with glee in the acquisition of the boat, palpably delighted by having solved a problem for them both.

The thought recurred, more insistent this time: a nautical setting suited him. Treacherous thought, that, and yet the angel, in a rare moment of self-indulgence, permitted himself to think it: Crowley was, in fact, entirely lovely, like this, his hair already whipping in windblown curls where it had been teased from its sailor’s plait; his grin wide and unrepentant; his yellow eyes shining, unshielded for once.

And why not? It was not a gambit, to leave them bare, not here. Who would see his inhuman eyes on the water?

(Aziraphale would.)

“I suppose,” he said, curt. Oddly, he felt a bit naked. “Time and tide waits for no man, after all.”

“Might wait for us, though,” said Crowley cheerfully, and when he laid his fingers on a rope the knot came loose in his hand, in a way that brought the word _unmoored_ abruptly to mind.

The angel tore his eyes away. “Anyway, you shouldn’t call it a pleasure cruise,” he said, feeling as though someone needed to keep his companion grounded. “It’s not as though we’re going to be lolling around eating bonbons. If I might remind you, this is a business trip.”

“If you like,” Crowley acknowledged, his grin returning. “No reason it can’t be fun, too, though, eh?”

"Well," Aziraphale said. “We’ll see.”

*

It was well after noon by the time the figure twitched, and then, little by little, contorted into a long and sinuous stretch.

“All right, I’m done being crisped. What next, angel?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” Aziraphale, deliberately not looking at the splendid red jut of his companion’s hips, busied himself at once with a bookmark. After all, his book had been open in his lap for quite a while, which meant that he had ostensibly been reading, and ought to mark his place. That was only logical. “I’m feeling a bit peckish, myself.”

“We still have some of our chocolates, back in the room,” said Crowley silkily.

“You know those aren’t _our_ chocolates.”

The corners of the demon’s mouth turned down in amusement; he apparently recognized the token protest for what it was. “Well,” he said. “They are now.”

The angel flushed. It was a conversation that they had already had several times, for the room was still a point of some contention. When the demon had proposed a cruise, a few months ago, and floated the idea of booking a room (“nothing fancy, obviously. Just somewhere for me to get a shuteye and you to watch ridiculous American telly”), Aziraphale had thought it sounded pleasant enough. However, upon their arrival two nights ago, they had discovered that there had been some mix-up with the reservations, and the two of them had actually managed to evict some other couple from the lavish honeymoon suite.

The whole affair had been truly mortifying. Cornucopias of roses and towers of boxed truffles had been laid out for a pair of newlyweds, not a grizzled pair of immortals. Aziraphale had wanted to correct the mistake at once, but Crowley, upon the revelation, had only laughed.

“I think we deserve something with a private tub,” he had said, “and anyway, angel, you’ve never been one to turn down free chocolates and champagne.”

“We can’t keep all of this,” Aziraphale had protested. “It would be wrong!”

“Oh, look,” Crowley had observed, deflecting. “Lavender bath bombs.”

They had both looked at the ribbon-festooned basket. And Aziraphale had thought, well, perhaps it would be more _miraculous_ for the couple to be upgraded after their first night anyway, and then he had discovered the complimentary pumice stone…

… and now it was the third day, and the swap still had not happened.

He pursed his lips, annoyed. His companion was making a whistling noise through his nose that meant that he was trying very hard not to laugh.

“Well,” he said, and got to his feet. “Perhaps we could order a proper bite to eat.”

“You liked that lox we ordered yesterday,” said Crowley, unfolding out of the deck chair to come with him. The expanse of his lanky, sunburnt body still gleamed, drawing instant attention from the other poolgoers. He really was wearing so _very_ little, Aziraphale thought helplessly. “Want me to call room service?”

The angel fixed his eyes on the elevator dock. “I wouldn’t say no. Maybe we can try a few other things as well.”

“Good idea,” Crowley said. “A cheese board, maybe. Some olivessss.”

Aziraphale was aware that he was being tempted, but then, there was no reason to try to resist it, any more. There had been no reason for about a year, now. The luxury of it was exquisite. “That sounds like just the ticket.”

They got into the lift together, miraculously bypassing the queue, and as the bronze doors slid shut Crowley leaned forward, such that Aziraphale felt his breath on his throat.

“And for dinner,” he said, “perhaps something indulgent.”

“It’s a cruise, my dear,” said the angel dryly, even as he was aware of another blush flowering in his cheeks. “It’s all indulgent.”

“We have the private dining room reserved,” said Crowley, softly, in his ear. “They’re doing a pheasant tonight, I believe.”

“Is that so?” said Aziraphale, as if he hadn’t spent a ludicrous amount of time looking over the ship’s various menus that very morning, over his coffee. “That could be fun.”

“I’m glad you think so,” said Crowley casually, as if he hadn’t caught the angel doing just that, when he’d arrived with croissants.

The lift dinged; the doors opened.

“So, tell me,” the demon went on, as they strolled towards their room. “What book did you risk, on the grubby deck of a cruise ship?”

Aziraphale, to his chagrin, discovered that he couldn’t even remember. “Jane Austen,” he said, and subtly made it so.

“Never read her. Anything memorable?”

Aziraphale opened his mouth for a venomous retort – and saw that the other was fighting not to laugh. “You,” he said, resigned, “are incorrigible.”

“Ta,” said Crowley, and opened the door for him.

*

To Aziraphale’s private surprise, Crowley had been right after all. Crossing the Atlantic without any humans aboard was delicious.

It wasn’t as though he had expected it to be boring, of course. It was more that he hadn’t really known what to expect at all. He had never properly sailed before (and he thought again of passing over the Bay of Bengal at that dizzying height, long ago, and shuddered). Seafaring, however, was far more invigorating than he had anticipated. He had spent so long caught up in the world of humans that so be removed like this, into a private place of salt and spray, felt both shocking and wildly personal, as if the elements were conspiring to remind him that he was an angel after all. Somehow, he had never thought about the fact that, beyond petty thrones and wars and empires, there were oceans that had known the planet as long as he had.

To be immortal in a setting like this, a secret place that asked nothing of him, was therefore wonderfully freeing. Heaven, after all, knew that he was traveling, and expected to hear nothing from him for months. There was no paperwork to complete, no quota of blessings to fill. He could lean out behind the bowsprit, feel the wind sharp on his face, look down at the leaping white foam, and experience it: a fearless kind of flight.

“A pleasure cruise,” Crowley had called it. That had been an exaggeration, of course, Aziraphale told himself sternly. Yet even so, the _Albatross_ was beginning to feel like something of a haven.

On and on into the blue they went, at a harrowing pace, though they hardly seemed to cover any distance at all. Clouds formed and parted, transient as living things; the sun hissed down into the ocean and rose again the next morning; and still the sea went on, blue above, blue below, blue at the great seam of the world. It reminded the angel of Creation, that great unbroken water at the dawn of time: before there were trees, or apples, or insouciant snakes bent on striking up conversation.

Of course, this last was hardly something one could avoid, on a ship that belonged to a demon.

Crowley came to talk to him often, here. His teasing voice would break into Aziraphale’s thoughts, and before the angel knew quite what was happening, they’d be arguing about the Library of Alexandria, or which of them had met Martin Luther first, or whether the angel had been fudging things when he took credit for the Gutenburg press.

The debate would go on and on, until, inevitably, something happened to distract Aziraphale from whatever truly excellent point he was making: usually something small, but always inexplicable. All at once he would feel winded, watching a jasper strand of hair tug loose from its tie, or noticing the way Crowley looked when he laughed, with no sunglasses to hide his eyes. It always made him forget whatever he had been about to say, to his intense irritation. It also always left him a little uncomfortable.

Something between them had, for no reason that he could understand, changed on the water.

Even their conversations were not like their banter onshore. Instead, something about Crowley was unrestrained in this setting, and strangely elated too. Even given the narrow confines of the ship, he managed to step just a little too close into the angel’s space, and put his mouth just a little too close to his ear. It was a source of both consternation and bewilderment, for though the rush of water and wind was immense, it was not enough noise to justify such a liberty.

Perhaps he would point it out. Yes, he would. He _should._ “Crowley,” he would say, the next time it happened. “Do you think you might –”

But then Crowley would sway towards him, and say, “By the way, wasn’t Christopher Columbus supposed to be one of yours, originally? Lose track of him, did you?” and Aziraphale would ruffle and turn to defend himself, roused to fire by the strange light shining in those flame-yellow eyes.

Still, the new intimacy continued to startle him, and he was actually on the verge of attempting to address it one evening, after the sun had set. They had been traveling for nearly a week, and Crowley, as he often did now, was standing beside him, close enough to lean into, looking up into the great and glittering firmament. Aziraphale was on the very point of saying something when the demon spoke first, almost absently.

“We’ve made good time, haven’t we?”

It was distracting, and baffling too: his companion was looking at the heavens as if the stars contained a map. Theoretically, of course, Aziraphale understood that circumnavigation was something that even humans mastered, but he also knew it was something that required much study and labor on their part. Despite this, Crowley appeared to be viewing the sky with as much certitude as if it bore printed instructions.

“That’s fortunate,” he said at last, unsure whether it had been meant to be rhetorical.

“Going a bit too far southward, though, I think,” said Crowley, squinting upward. He chewed his lip for a moment, and then, raising a hand, made a complicated sigil in the air. Aziraphale felt the _Albatross_ murmur beneath them as the wind changed, the ship’s course altering by no more than a few degrees.

It was impressive. Breathtakingly so, he was reluctant to discover; and as Crowley turned to him, and stopped with sudden interest, Aziraphale wondered what the demon could see in his face.

He looked away, berating himself. It had probably been a mistake, to agree to a voyage like this. Certainty of that fact moved through him, icy and cruel. There was nowhere for either of them to go, if the other made – some kind of error of judgment, or – some kind of inappropriate overture –

“Want to come below with me?” said the demon abruptly.

Aziraphale felt his mouth open in shock. “I beg your pardon,” he said at last. “Do I what?”

“I just – I thought we should celebrate. Nearly a week on the water, you know. We could open a bottle of wine.”

“Oh,” said Aziraphale, disconcerted. “Of course.”

“Good,” Crowley said, still looking at him with that keen attention. “Because I might have a surprise for you.”

*****

Aziraphale blinked. “You do?”

They had worked their way through the cheese board, and the room-service tray was now a portrait of debris: gnarled grape stems, olive pits, a smear of brie. Crowley was flat on his back on the floor, having slithered down to a prone position after eating the lion’s share of the Stilton; Aziraphale leaned over the edge of the bed to peer down at him.

“You already told me about the pheasant,” he said, dubiously.

“Not the pheasant,” said Crowley, scratching his stomach. “Anyway, _dinner_ by itself isn’t a surprise.”

“What?” Aziraphale said. “But –”

He cut himself off, but it was too late. A memory of a narrow cutter’s cabin, the table laden with treats, was already clear in his mind’s eye. Crowley had said pretty much the exact same thing then, hadn’t he? He had held the door open for Aziraphale, debonair with his shirtsleeves rolled up to the elbow and the laces at the throat untied, and said _Come on, then_. The angel remembered. He had felt as flustered as a second Eve.

Crowley was watching him. Flushing, Aziraphale averted his eyes from that yellow gaze. Even now, when they were – well, more dear to each other than they had yet been, there were a few things they did not discuss. Their time on the _Albatross,_ three hundred years previous, was one of those topics, probably because of the way it had ended in unmitigated disaster.

Some of the conversations they had had in the days directly prior to Armageddon had also, by unspoken agreement, made that list. Some unfortunate words had been spoken; some hyperbolic language had been used. But the worst thing that had ever passed between them had been a question.

Aziraphale felt his throat tighten.

Crowley snaked his toes under Aziraphale’s trouser hem. “Hey,” he said, pushing lightly against the ankle. “Angel.”

Aziraphale smiled at him reassuringly, or tried to; he wasn’t sure he had been entirely successful, judging by the demon’s expression. “Sorry,” he answered. “I’m a bit sleepy, I think. All that sun,” he added, as he convinced his corporation that it was true.

The demon’s eyebrows raised at that. He propped himself up on his elbows, but although his mouth opened, he didn’t actually contradict the sentiment. The angel was grateful to not have his bluff called; his only desire, at that particular moment, was a little bit of time to recover his composure.

“All right,” said Crowley, after a pregnant silence. “Well, why don’t I go cause a bit of mayhem at the baccarat table, and meet you for dinner?”

The angel kept his voice light. “What time is our reservation?”

“Six.”

“Six it is.”

He lay stiffly back on the bed. He was aware of Crowley getting to his feet, of some rustling around near their artfully human luggage, of the door to the water closet opening. “There’s a dress code, by the way.”

“I shan’t disappoint,” Aziraphale said.

“I make no such promises.”

The tap ran for a little while, and the angel closed his eyes.

He was still terrible at napping, of course. Of the two of them, Crowley was the one who slept properly, the way that humans did. He had a frankly uncanny knack for it. He could lie down and find unconsciousness anywhere, on anything – including on the crude edge of bookshelves, or even, if the fancy struck, on the ceiling. Aziraphale had caught him at it several times after Armageddon, as their living situation had slowly changed. _How can you possibly do that?_ he had asked, stupefied. _Aren’t you worried you’ll fall?_

As soon as the word had left his lips, he’d flinched at the sound of it (how insensitive, to ask such a thing of a demon) - yet Crowley, thankfully, had taken the question literally. _I don’t know, maybe?_ he’d answered, startled by whatever he had seen in the angel’s face. _But if it feels right, might as well try it, eh?_

But Aziraphale had never quite got the hang of whether it felt right. Not really. The state of peace that seemed like it ought to be part of the process continuously eluded him. Small wonder that, on the whole, he still preferred to read.

This afternoon was no different. As he lay there, little by little, the clarity of his consciousness seemed to grow muddied. Conviction surfaced within him that he was not human-shaped, which some other part of his mind rejected as illogical. Still, he felt rotund; his center of gravity was all wrong, as though it had floated up to settle in his breast; his corporation’s bones were as light as filigree. The plumage fanning out behind him was not snowy, but dark and strange. Unfamiliar though it was, he sensed that he was aloft, somehow, and far below him was an ocean, bright with silver-tipped waves.

The thought surfaced that it he must be terribly high in the air, for the water to be so distant.

He opened his eyes. The alarm clock, which had said two only moments before, reported that it was nearly five. Crowley was nowhere in sight.

Aziraphale passed a hand over his face, and got up.

Dressing for dinner was a careful, cautious business. He struggled with strangely clumsy human fingers, with a toilette that felt more tedious than usual. Still, he had made a distinct effort to pack something tasteful – a robins-egg blue button down, a creamy white bow tie – and by the time he was ready to sally forth to the resplendent mezzanine, he was feeling a bit recovered.

“Sir looks very nice this evening,” said the waiter stoically. “And sir’s friend is already waiting for him.”

“Thank you,” said Aziraphale, not bothering to correct him, and he stepped into the private dining room.

*

Cheese, fruit, summer sausages, and fish were laid out in the captain’s cabin, and Aziraphale, incredulous, looked from them to Crowley, who was uncorking a bottle of madeira.

“Crowley, really,” he said reprovingly, and the demon glanced at him, palpably unrepentant. “This is all extremely unnecessary.”

“Oh, sure, obviously,” Crowley said, picking up a flute of crystal and pouring a generous quantity of wine into it. “Sit.”

Aziraphale hesitated. It wasn’t the first time they’d eaten together, not by a long shot – that had been nearly two thousand years previous, and the opportunity had cropped up dozens of times since. Oysters, mince pies, roast chicken, even a watery honeyed porridge in Saxony had all preceded this moment, a plausibly innocent dinner at sea.

Yet he was strangely nervous all the same. The same feeling that had chilled him on deck was moving through him again, foreboding: if either of them misstepped, in whatever form that might take, there was nowhere to go. They were alone in the middle of the ocean.

“Tempt you to some apple,” Crowley said, waving a piece under his nose. “Though I’d prefer not to do the whole speech. It’s been a while.”

“Very funny,” said Aziraphale sourly, and took a honeyed fig instead, sucking the lingering sweetness from his fingertips until he caught Crowley watching sidelong. He cleared his throat, and the yellow gaze darted away.

All of the food was surprisingly good. The sausage was delicious, rank and sharp with its overabundance of garlic; the cheese had not yet molded; and the fish, somehow still hot from baking, flaked away at the touch of a fork. Best of all, Crowley had brought a whole case of the wine, and they went through it as easily as water. The angel was pleasantly aware of the warmth spreading in his veins, the heady sweetness of the alcohol marrying to the salty sea air and leaving him quite intoxicated.

Well, perhaps it would be easier to have difficult conversations than he had thought, after all. He felt more and more sure of it with every additional sip of his wine. Little by little, the bowl of figs emptied, and the fish slowly revealed its lattice of bone. He dabbed at his lips with a napkin.

“So,” he said.

“So,” Crowley echoed, languid in his chair.

“You know that I – enjoy our little collaborations.”

“Ooh, what tawdry phrasing.” Crowley waggled his eyebrows. “Gosh, I feel like a mistress.”

“I’m being quite serious.”

“Even better.”

“If it comes to it,” Aziraphale said, and cleared his throat. “How do you propose we stay out of each other’s way?”

The demon looked surprised, and then annoyed. Pushing back from the table, as if he meant to cut their dinner abruptly short, he tossed back the rest of his madeira. “Then why don’t you just say ‘please bugger off, Crowley,’ and I’ll leave you alone as long as you like?”

“No, I meant –” Aziraphale was exasperated. Leave it to Crowley to misunderstand a perfectly reasonable comment. “When we get to the New World.”

“What?”

“If we both have assignments –” He faltered at the plain confusion on his companion’s face, which was frankly mystifying, after their discussion in the Pip and Pear ten days ago. _Since we’re on the topic,_ Crowley had said, leaning forward intently, and Aziraphale had suddenly realized, with a strong sense of foreboding, that the Arrangement was about to expand to the shores of yet another continent.

_Some miscellaneous tasks – speed along the unrest – hear the taxation has gotten quite steep already, which is prime real estate, angel –_

But Crowley had never actually specified what Hell wanted him to do. The angel frowned, racking his memory. “I mean, whatever they’re sending you for, it stands to reason that we’ll be at odds, doesn’t it?”

“Oh, right,” Crowley said, his expression clearing a little. “Yeah, sure, that’s perfectly logical. Don’t worry, though, angel. I’m sure we’ll figure it out when we need to.”

For some reason, however, he declined to say any more about it, and changed the topic at once.

Aziraphale was left to wonder why.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a tumultuous week, but I think this fic is coming together, which is one fun piece.  
> Books I am so pleased you're liking it so far - I hope I stick the landing. And thank you to everyone who has said nice things! It means a lot, when the world is so Much right now.

After the empty soup bowls, salad dishes, plates of mollusc shells, and pheasant-strewn platters had been cleared away, Aziraphale set aside his napkin and leaned back in his chair with a happy sigh.

“Exquisite.”

Crowley fished the champagne out of the ice bucket and poured the dregs of it into the angel’s glass. The corners of his mouth were twitching. “It was,” he agreed.

“I would say that it was even of a tier with our usual fare at the Ritz,” Aziraphale said. The bliss of well-fed rotundity was making him generous. “Or, oh, possibly that little restaurant we went to in Marseilles, do you remember –”

“1983.”

“Yes, precisely. My word. I wonder if the chef attended a French culinary school.”

“That would be miraculous indeed.”

The angel looked at him suspiciously, but his companion’s face was bland as he set the bottle aside. Questions rose to the tip of his tongue. Crowley _had_ mentioned a surprise earlier, but the topic had not come up again, and he really wondered if –

“Another bottle?”

He swallowed his curiosity, feeling annoyed. Their waiter had reappeared, and Aziraphale was, for some reason, becoming a bit vexed by his timing, which had been increasingly poor over the course of the evening. Waiters should, he felt instinctively, possess an intuition for when they were needed, but this one continued to err on the side of over-attentiveness. True, this might have been no great sin on its own, but angelic insight told him that it was not solely due to professional zealousness.

Even as he thought this, the young man popped a fresh cork and sent the brilliant stream foaming into Crowley’s glass first. 

“I’m so glad everything met with your approval, sir.”

“Mmm?” said the demon, who was plainly not really listening. “Oh, yeah, top notch.”

“Can I interest you in the dessert menu?”

“I suppose you had better tempt us,” the demon drawled, with a sideways look at Aziraphale.

It was a moment of linguistic intimacy that ricocheted and hit the wrong target. Their waiter blushed to the roots of his dark hair, and said, in a conspiratorial tone, “We do have a _sinful_ chocolate ganache at the moment.”

Aziraphale said nothing. He even fancied that he had managed to keep his face impassive. Crowley, however, was catapulted from oblivion into instant glee.

“ _Do_ you.”

“Yeah,” said the waiter, breathlessly, his eyes on Crowley’s mouth. “It’s divine.”

“Sinful _and_ divine,” Crowley observed, who was in the paroxysms of visible delight. “How unusual, to find a union of those two things.”

Really, it was too much. Aziraphale set his hand deliberately on the table, toying with an oyster fork. The tines made the smallest sound imaginable, a tiny metallic clink, but it drew the waiter’s eyes nonetheless.

There was a horrible beat where all three of them were more or less still, although Crowley was, to his discredit, vibrating slightly in joy. Then the young man went on smoothly, as if nothing had happened. “Or I can also offer you an excellent pavlova to finish, with mulberry compote, if you prefer.”

“A _pavlova_ ,” said Crowley, grinning back at him. “Gosh, I think I’d better defer to a more refined palate. What tickles your fancy tonight, _angel?_ ” and their waiter flushed even pinker.

“That sounds lovely,” said Aziraphale mildly. “Two of those, please.”

After the departure of the unfortunate young man, Crowley took off his sunglasses and pinched the bridge of his nose, openly shaking with laughter.

“Well?” said Aziraphale, peevish in the face of his mirth.

“Did I say anything?”

The angel tsked, reaching for his champagne. “I think I have to revise my earlier review,” he said, once he had been properly refreshed. “I don’t think I would call the _service_ of the same caliber as the Ritz.”

“Well, it is an _American_ cruise line,” said Crowley, wiping his eyes. “The culture is a little more direct. Always has been.”

Aziraphale, watching him replace his sunglasses, was suddenly reminded of that first morning they had spent on the Albatross. A vision rose in his mind’s eye of Crowley summoning the wind, long ago, on the deck of a different ship, drawing the attention of the rest of Portsmouth – and how little he had cared. Whether sailors stared or waiters flirted, the demon was largely oblivious. His attention was almost always elsewhere.

The flood of feeling was acute, and almost painful in its tenderness.

“What?” said Crowley, catching his gaze.

“I just hope we didn’t make a mistake,” Aziraphale said, smiling down into his champagne glass. “You know how I love ganache.”

When he looked up again, Crowley’s eyes were soft, as if Aziraphale had brought up a different topic entirely.

“Angel, if you like,” he said, leaning back in his chair, “we’ll order one of everything on the menu.”

*

Crowley took care to alter their course in front of Aziraphale, after that first time.

He did not know what such posturing meant, exactly. He only knew that he liked to watch it, the elegant shape of him, hand in the rigging, leaning well out over the water to look up into the night. Starlight anointed his jasper hair, his pale corded forearms, as he read the pinpricks of fire.

It was unfair. Of this, at least, he was certain; he was less sure why he found it fascinating rather than infuriating. They were of the same basic stock, and yet, somehow, they could come up on deck after nightfall and observe the same moon, the same constellations, the same luminous stripe of the Milky Way, and see radically different things. Beauty only Aziraphale saw; that, and light. But the sum of these items told him nothing.

Crowley, on the other hand, seemed to read the sky like a book. It was mystifying, watching his analysis, separate from language and somehow more intrinsic too. He would find a handful of stars, and tweak their course until the ship steered further south, and then look to the angel as if he expected some kind of affirmation. Sometimes his eyes would soften, as if he had received it –

– and Aziraphale, though he understood none of this, could not help but smile back at him, despite his best efforts not to.

He was certainly making such efforts tonight. Crowley was gazing skyward, his profile as arresting as ever; although, of course, it only took a minute or two, to Aziraphale’s regret. After altering their course by a few degrees, he came to sit with the angel, sprawling, as he often did now, close enough to touch.

A ridiculous thought, of course. Aziraphale bit the inside of his lip, and put his hands firmly in his lap.

“Humans, I’m told,” he said, feeling well out of his depth, “need all kinds of instruments to do what you just did.”

“What?”

“You know. Sextants and math and things.”

“Oh, well,” said Crowley, dismissively. “Humans aren’t happy unless they can pin something down with measurements and whatnot.”

“A foolish endeavor, in the case of stars. I don’t think you can really do that, with things that are hundreds of lightyears away.”

The demon looked surprised. “Sure you can. Someday they’ll even be able to tell exactly how far away they are.”

Aziraphale tried and failed to conceive of this. He was envisioning some kind of flying seabird, trailing an untold amount of string to be measured out fathom by fathom – but no, any winged thing would perish in the airless place beyond the world, surely. Even his own corporation would suffer. “What? How?”

“Parallax.”

“What?”

“Relative distance,” said Crowley patiently.

A demon, Aziraphale told himself crossly, took pleasure in being deliberately obscure, and he would have let the subject go right then had Crowley not reached across the narrow space between them and taken his hand. Those long, spindly fingers folded his own corporation’s hand into a fist, and then extended his thumb, and held it up between them.

“Close an eye.”

“What?” said Aziraphale, staring from his own thumb up into Crowley’s yellow gaze.

“Close an eye. Either eye. Doesn’t matter.”

The angel hesitated. In some secret, shadowed part of himself, he was conscious of romantic tropes between humans. He had always told himself that it was an academic interest, important to cultivate as a being of love, but occasionally worried that his delight in the lovers who clasped hands, the beaus who whispered _close your eyes_ before leaning in, was not as detached as he might like.

It wouldn’t be the first time he had pondered such things in his heart, but the Serpent of Eden, folded up in front of him with a knee jutting at an impossible angle, damp, increasingly exasperated, holding up a forcibly erected thumb for his evaluation, did not match any tender scene he had ever heard of.

Well. That was fine. Of course it was.

He shut an eye.

“All right. Watch where your thumb is,” Crowley instructed, “and then swap. Eyes, I mean.”

Aziraphale’s thumb was partially obscuring the corner of Crowley’s mouth – but when he shut his eye and opened the other one, it was silhouetted a little bit more towards the jawline.

“Okay,” said Crowley, “and now, wink back and forth. One eye open, one eye shut. Watch the thumb, mind.”

The angel winked back and forth, feeling ridiculous. The thumb jumped: lip to jaw, jaw to lip. It was a bit disorienting.

“I see,” he said, though he wasn’t sure he did.

“It’s a sort of triangulation,” said the demon, letting go of him. “The same thing will work with stars, they just have to figure it out. The concept is pretty simple: you can’t tell how close your target might be, until you view it against a different backdrop.”

And Aziraphale, looking at the wet rope of his hair, the wine dark strands against the unbroken water, thought that he understood _that,_ in every fibre of his being.

“When will they figure it out?” he breathed, groping for solid ground – but of course there was none of that, not for days.

“Oh,” said Crowley, looking at him intently, “soon, I hope.”

Aziraphale did not know what to say to that, and so he turned his face back to the stars.

*

They were only just starting to come out: a glint here, two there, a gleam of fire near the horizon. At first, there had only been one, and now there were ten at least. In an hour they would be beyond counting.

Aziraphale leaned on the railing, looking up into the satin blue, turning over their possible identities in his mind. There was one particularly reddish one that he wasn’t sure was a star at all. Perhaps it was a planet. Crowley would know, but Crowley had gone to fetch them a post-dinner drink. (Something hot, Aziraphale had requested, and the demon had said, with startling earnestness, _Leave it to me._ )

Something about the gathering dusk, reflected in the endless susurration of the water, made something in his chest flutter. Starlight did always remind him of a different voyage, a different sky. There were quite a few other people on deck, drinking and talking and laughing, but he felt transported to that other time, as though, even now, he was immobilized by the vision of a demon leaning forward, solemn, holding up an extended thumb, and abruptly close enough to –

He found himself blushing at the memory, which was surprising. That had been long ago. Much had changed since then.

Above him, one of the stars blinked out.

Aziraphale paused, startled. A little piece of the night had torn itself loose from the sky and plummeted towards the earth, until it spread its wings and – oh, no, of course, it was a bird, a massive bird, how silly of him. For one horrible, wrongfooted moment he had thought it was something falling.

He was not the only one who had noticed it. A few other passengers pointed it out to each other, and they watched the beautiful creature go soaring along the side of the ship, the wingspan as wide as a man’s arms.

“It’s an albatross,” said an elderly woman, coming to stand near the angel. Together they watched as it did a wide arc near the stern of the boat and came wheeling back, dark against the cobalt sky. “They’re good omens, they are.”

It looked so joyful, Aziraphale thought. As though flight was equivalent to fearlessness. “Are they?”

She nodded. “Yes. They’ll weather any storm. And, if one follows your ship, then so will you.”

“That’s lucky enough,” said Aziraphale, trying to sound jovial. “Especially when a proper storm can dash a ship to pieces.”

“No,” said the stranger firmly. “Not if there’s an albatross in view.”

“A lovely superstition.”

She regarded him sharply. Her eyes were an odd color; he couldn’t find a name for it. “Did you ever read _The Rime of the Ancient Mariner_?” she said at last.

It took him a moment. “Oh, yes. Coleridge. Sickly chap. But a good heart, I think.”

“That’s right,” said the woman. “He knew the truth of it. They slaughter one, in that old poem, you know, and that’s the one thing you must never do. Else the good luck sours.” She nodded, as if to herself. “It’s always far better to cherish something than to try to get rid of it. And that isn’t a _superstition,_ my good sir.”

“Yes,” Aziraphale said, feeling suddenly chilled. “I beg your pardon. I didn’t realize.”

Something about that amused her, but she did not reply.

They watched the easy dip and glide of the bird, and then the angel stepped away from the railing. “Well,” he said. “Thank you, madam, for your –”

“Some of them mate for life, you know,” the older woman said, still watching the flight pattern. “They might spend a half century devoted to one other bird.” She looked so thin as to be insubstantial, in the fading light. “It puts humans to shame.”

“Oh, yes,” said Aziraphale, backing away. “Impressive.”

She didn’t turn to watch him go.

Later, he thought how odd it was that she had used the word _humans_. He went so far as to walk back that way, along the promenade, looking for her, once he had gotten a small cognac for himself as fortification. By then, however, there were no older women gazing skyward to be found – only the railing, and the dark ocean, stretching away as far as the eye could see beneath some distant wisps of cloud. (He found himself eyeing their thin shapes suspiciously, but they were a high gauzy cirrus, thin enough for the stars to peep through.)

The albatross was nowhere in sight.

He drank his cognac, and waited for Crowley.

*

The storm hit somewhere around the third week, squarely in the middle of the Atlantic.

Aziraphale, purely by chance, had been down in the cabin, poring over a map, when he noticed the quicksilver in the barometer sinking fast. He had no idea what it meant, but he did know that the instrument had been affixed in a place of prominence, which was something humans usually did when something was important.

It had not returned to its usual state when Crowley came down a little while later for a cup of coffee. He forgot it entirely when Aziraphale turned to him mutely, distressed, and showed him the change. Tapping on the glass, the demon’s only idea, did not restore it to its usual levels.

“Well? What does it mean? You said you knew how to sail.”

“I said I knew _a bit_.” Crowley was visibly uncomfortable.

Aziraphale frowned, and opened his mouth to say something else, but the demon was already turning away, already rummaging through the folios and packets of additional papers. They packed away the map and rifled hastily through the documents, which included records of purchase and so on, but it appeared that, through some oversight, no one had included a helpful guide about basic instruments for human circumnavigation.

In the end, the simple act of going up on deck provided their answer. Far to the west, the horizon looked as though the water was boiling, under the onslaught of licks of lightning, flashes of color, and great heaving masses of violet cloud.

“Oh, it just means a storm is coming,” said Aziraphale, relaxing. “That’s not too terrible. We can just send it away.”

Crowley looked at him in silence for a minute, and then away. “We can try.”

Aziraphale thought this was an odd thing to say. They had both fiddled with the weather before. Even beyond summoning the wind to carry the _Albatross_ for the last few weeks, their history was peppered with small alterations _._ One did not become accustomed to the dreary English drizzle overnight, for example, and they had both sent away masses of clouds to secure sun for some of their previous clandestine meetings. Once Crowley had even made it snow for a charming Yuletide festival, although he had feigned ignorance of the phenomenon at the time.

Of course, those had been much smaller events – and there really was an awful lot of lightning happening –

“Come here,” said Crowley sharply. “If this is going to work, we’re going to have to work together.”

Aziraphale looked at the darkening horizon again, and swallowed.

The touch of that slender hand was startling, but he was only guiding Aziraphale’s own. Allowing the air to slacken out of their sails, he demonstrated how to summon the wind, and bend it with a gesture to their collective will. Together they raised their hands and pushed back against the oncoming storm.

It was a bit like pouring a cup of water into a river. The angel felt, rather than saw, a massive wheel of powerful force moving beyond their vision. Thirstily, insatiably, it drank from their funnel of air.

Above them, the sails rippled, and then shuddered, and then began to beat as furiously as wings.

“We should batten the hatches,” said Crowley softly.

It took only a few minutes, which was fortunate; as it turned out, they had only had a few minutes to spare before the darkness was utterly upon them.

Time became a bit fuzzy, after that.

Aziraphale was aware of being wetter than he had ever been in his life, almost like a drowned thing. He could not tell whether the water soaking him through was rain or ocean or both; there was such a very great deal of water in all directions, as though multiple additional oceans were barreling towards him from every point of the compass. The noise of it was unbelievable. Water should trickle, or burble, or splash, he felt sure. Despite his certainty, however, the current deluge seemed to be doing none of these, but rather shrieked like a banshee as it plunged him ruthlessly under the surface for the hundredth time.

Managing to catch hold of the rigging, he wiped the water out of his face and looked around frantically, only to see Crowley fighting the tiller, blurred by rain. He looked rather like a banshee himself, Aziraphale thought dizzily: skin pale, teeth bared, yellow hellfire blazing in his eyes as he evaluated the undulating mountains of water. His hair streamed out behind him, a defiant, dark banner, black against the wall of the sea.

A series of hysterical thoughts occurred – first, that they were almost certainly going to drown; second, that the first thought was nonsense, since they were immortal, but the paperwork would certainly be dreadful –

– and third, and most importantly, and regardless of the truth of either foregoing thought, Aziraphale did not think he could bear to see Crowley dragged under the water.

The second miracle required the rest of his strength. With a twist of his fingers, he sent it racing through the hull of the boat, licking through the wood like flame, teaching it to be impervious. It would be safe. It would not capsize, would not shatter, would not sink.

The demon felt it. Aziraphale saw the golden eyes widen, even as he filled his own lungs with air.

Come below, he shouted.

The wind tore his words away, but Crowley must have caught his meaning somehow; he let go of the wheel and came skidding along the deck towards him, almost sideways, as the ship heaved, until a great wave of green water picked him up and smashed him ruthlessly against the railing. If he made a sound, the angel could not hear it, but the pale face was a rictus of pain. Aziraphale wound an arm in the ropes and stretched out his free hand. Their wet fingers slipped, stretched, caught, grasped, held.

Aziraphale heaved him in. Underneath them, the boat rolled, but he held the slender figure steady, one arm braced around the waist as Crowley leaned to scrabble at the battened hatch. The water rushing over their feet was streaked with scarlet. He had no idea which one of them was bleeding.

And then the hatch was open, and Crowley slithered down it and reached for Aziraphale, who took three steps down the ladder and then was hurled the rest of the way by another great deluge of water.

His whole body, his whole being, reacted with terror to the sensation of falling. For one long, suspended moment, he forgot about discorporation, and Grace, and immortality, and all of the various things that protected him from the permanence of death.

None of it mattered. Not in that weightless splinter of time. He was simply a winged thing without time to open his wings.

In the end, he did not even have time to make a sound. The instant of the drop was over before it had begun. His skull cracked viciously against the lip of the deck on his way down, and then he was flat on his side, blinking the wet out of his eyes, aware that something had just splintered in his hip.

He touched his face. His fingers came away red.

Gosh, he said, and he still could not hear his own voice over the noise. Crowley was perched on the ladder, making the hatch fast again, and then the demon’s face came abruptly near and faded to gray.

*

The sky had gone completely dark by the time Aziraphale heard the familiar voice behind him. “There you are,” it said, a bit irritably. “I’ve been looking for you all over,” and then, “Oh, you –”

Aziraphale turned. The demon was holding a lidded cup that was steaming gently; he frowned a little when he saw the angel already had a drink in hand. “Coffee,” he said, by way of explanation. “I didn’t realize you wanted a nightcap.”

“That sounds lovely, my dear,” said Aziraphale. A snap of his fingers, and the liquid in his glass changed into a slightly perturbed Irish cream; he accepted the cup, and poured in the shot.

“What are you doing up here?”

“Oh, nothing of any great importance.” A pause; and then, reluctantly, he felt compelled to add the critical detail. “I saw an albatross.”

It was not a word they said to each other often, even in the aftermath of Armagedidn’t. He was aware of Crowley tensing beside him, although he couldn’t quite make out the demon’s expression under his sunglasses (even at this late hour, the demon preferred not to take any chances). Still, he felt the weight of the yellow gaze on him, and knew they were both thinking of the same thing.

“Did you?” said Crowley at last, rather too casually. “They’re beautiful birds, I hear.”

“They are,” Aziraphale said, matching his tone. “I was also just informed that they’re good omens.”

“Huh. Sorry I missed it.”

“Yes,” said the angel. “Yes, you would have liked to see it, I think.”

Crowley peered at him for moment longer. “All right, you’ll have to tell me,” he said. “Are you up for another spectacle, or are you done in for the night?”

“Oh, we can’t go in just yet,” said Aziraphale, smiling down into his coffee. “I have it on good authority that there’s going to be a surprise tonight.”

“Good,” said Crowley, and he pointed.

It took him a moment to see what the demon was gesturing at. Far above, a shiver of green caught his eye, but there was nothing more than that. Then a sudden glint of pink sprang into being, and then the entire piece of celestial jewelry was being lifted out of its wrappings, catching the light, a collar of jade and gold and violet against the throat of the sky.

It was an aurora, of a splendor the likes of which the angel had never seen. For a minute he discovered that he could say nothing at all - not that he would have been heard if he had, for exclamations of astonishment were already filling the air, a rising hubbub that grew as more and more of their fellow passengers noticed the spectacle. Already there were hundreds of people calling to each other, fishing out smartphones, pointing excitedly. Aziraphale hid a smile at the noise of their obvious shock. It was well merited. Though he did not know much about latitudes, even he was dimly aware that their ship was nowhere near the Arctic Circle.

At last he found his voice again. “We shouldn’t be able to see the Northern Lights from here, should we?”

The demon’s voice was mild. “I don’t believe it’s usually possible, no.”

Oh, the joy of it was seeping through him, inexorable as the waves. “It must be a special occasion.”

Beside him, Crowley coughed, and shifted his weight. “Well, you know. It’s been a year since the world didn’t end.”

That would explain it. Aziraphale had been aware that it had been about a year, but he had not memorized the date. Suspicion suddenly stole through him, about the true nature of a room several floors below them, a room endowed with a private tub and overflowing with chocolates.

“My goodness,” he said, keeping his voice carefully neutral. “It’s practically an anniversary.”

“Do you think so?” said Crowley softly.

Aziraphale glanced at him. Green and lavender light was idly playing over the demon’s hair, changing it into an alchemist’s fire. It looked as though it would burn to the touch.

“I do,” he murmured. “And it’s beautiful.”

Crowley looked back at him sidelong. “It’s confusing the hell out of the staff, you know. They’ll be up all night triple-checking their charts. Very demonic stuff.”

“Ah. I stand corrected,” said Aziraphale, gazing skyward again. “In that case, it’s absolutely dastardly.”

“Yep,” said Crowley, but he moved until their arms were nearly flush, and didn’t say anything else.

The two of them looked up at the rippling auroras, those shivering, shifting lights, soft and yet brilliant enough to transform everything else: the stars, the ship, the long pale comet of their wake. Apropos of nothing, Aziraphale found himself wondering where the albatross was. Perhaps it had managed to find a safe harbor before the night had lit up with color. Or perhaps it had looked up and been compelled to take flight again, driven by nameless desire to join such glory in the sky.

He exhaled, and leaned into the comforting weight of the demon beside him. It was a tiny gesture, and one he never would have dreamed of doing three hundred years ago (oh, how he blushed to remember it: every instance that the demon had dared to close the space between them, yet left a gap for Aziraphale to fill, if he so chose. He never had).

But, he reminded himself, as he had reminded himself for the last fifty-odd weeks: things were different now.

Out of the corner of his eye, he caught the demon’s smile, illuminated by the endless prisms of light.

Their ship passed on into the night.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for coming along!  
> Happy gift fic to you Books, I hope you like the ending!!!

The first thing he was aware of was a splitting headache, centered under a funny, tight, puckered sensation on his scalp. Wincing, he attempted to probe the spot, wondering what it was - but a hand intercepted the slow, sluggish movement and squeezed his fingers tightly.

“Ah, um, let’s leave that alone for now, I think.”

Aziraphale blinked. Crowley’s face swam into focus. The demon looked very pale.

“Hi, angel.”

“Crowley,” said the angel thickly. His tongue felt fat and useless in his corporation’s mouth. He tried to swallow, and gagged a little. “What –”

“You took a bit of a spill, there at the end, in the storm. Foolish of you, really. Demons are shit at healing, you know that, I’ve tried to tell you that before. Remember that time with the ailing painter in Milan, and you said, can’t you just pop over from Verona, and I said it was a terrible idea, and you were a little bit snippy about it –”

Crowley was talking rapidly, but when Aziraphale tried to sit up, the demon subsided and lunged to help him.

“Carefully, _carefully_ – !”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re _not_ fine, you’re very obviously not fine, if anything you’re a few leagues away from fine –”

“Crowley,” said Aziraphale, exasperated.

“What?”

“I’m –” Nausea moved through him: ghostly, terrible. He struggled against the urge to drag his hand free and rub at his scalp. “Just tell me what happened.”

“Well.” The demon cleared his throat. “You split your head open as you came down. It was rather, um, dire.”

“Really?” It was a fascinating idea. “Dire” injuries were not something that Aziraphale normally worried about.

“And.” Crowley wasn’t looking directly at him. “You might have a bit of a scar.”

“A _what?_ ”

“You’ll be fine,” said Crowley quickly. “I’m sure you can take care of it.”

Wincing, Aziraphale tried to sit up. It hurt to move; he wavered, and spindly hands steadied him at once.

“My dear, I’m all right. You needn’t fuss.” His own fingers covered Crowley’s, for just an instant. “Thank you for helping me.”

The demon hesitated, looking back at him. They were very close together. His eyes really were hypnotically lovely, Aziraphale thought, watching them flick to his mouth; he nearly said as much, and managed to catch himself.

“How is the ship?” he said instead.

“Ah.” Crowley shifted awkwardly. “About that...”

Abruptly suspicious, Aziraphale squinted at him. This particular evasive tone had only ever signified trouble in the past: a botched blessing, an unshod horse, the wrong Boleyn sister, a great deal of paperwork. Crowley’s shoulders were hunched in a way that typically preceded the words, _So, listen, angel –_

“So, okay, listen,” the demon said now, and Aziraphale hushed him and got to his feet.

It took a bit of finagling, as he was still extremely lightheaded, but with Crowley’s assistance he eventually managed to climb the narrow ladder to the deck. At first glance, fortunately, it was not nearly as much of a disaster as he had anticipated – for example, he distinctly remembered the sails tearing loose from their stays, and the mast splintering, but it looked as though both of those things had been restored to their former glory. Although – surely the mast was a bit shorter than it had been – and the rigging did not look the way it had, before –

“Look, I did my best,” said Crowley. He clicked his fingers and the ropes rearranged themselves again, braiding themselves into a new configuration that was still not quite right. “But I’m having a devil of a time getting it right. No pun intended.”

The angel could not quite make sense of this. If the sails were rigged, then surely - but no. A moment later, when he lifted his own hand and brought the wind himself, it was clear that, though the canvas billowed, it spilled the air uselessly.

“Yeah,” said Crowley, watching. “You see the problem.”

Aziraphale’s head hurt terribly, and worse, the pain was resisting his subtle miracles to get rid of it. “I thought you knew how to sail.”

The demon looked uncomfortable. “I never said that. I said _a bit._ Remember? ‘A bit,’ I said.”

“Well, that’s –” Aziraphale floundered. “We’ll just move the boat instead.”

The demon actually managed a bit of a smile at that, although it was taut and uncertain. “Tried that already. I think we’d have better luck flying, to be honest with you.”

Frowning, Aziraphale set his fingertips on the wood. It shivered in recognition; he could still feel it ringing with the force of the miracle he had used during the storm. He hesitated for a moment, and then he spoke to it, with all the force of his angelic grace.

Westward, he told it. You want to go westward.

It wasn’t the same. Buoyancy was easy to give to a boat, since no boat desired to sink. Speed, conversely, was difficult, when a whole ocean of water was dragging against the miracle. Even a minute or two was a strain to sustain, and when he let go of the power, the backlash of release stung against his palms, as though he had burned himself on a rope.

“We’ll take it in turns,” the demon said, hovering nervously. “It shouldn’t be too bad, if we take our time.”

Aziraphale felt his stomach drop. “Define ‘time.’ How _much_ time?”

“I don’t know,” Crowley admitted. He coughed. “An extra month, maybe?”

“An extra month,” the angel repeated.

“Maybe less? I don't know."

Aziraphale found that he was struggling to catch his breath, which made no sense; this corporation didn’t need to breathe, not really. “You think it will take an extra –”

“Well, look, it’s not so bad, is it?” said Crowley. “A few additional weeks to just – not owe anybody anything.” He tried for a smile. “Now it can be a pleasure cruise after all.”

The angel stared at him, and then, with a flood of sudden, icy understanding, the events of the last several weeks became clear to him.

*

The thing was damning in its simplicity.

Foolish, too. In fact, he would go so far as to call it embarrassing, but, well, there were humans revolted by spiders and snakes, weren’t there? So perhaps it was all right to look at the thing head-on, and confess it , or at least, confess it to himself, even if he wasn’t sure he would ever admit it to another being (even The Being, though perhaps She already knew) –

So. Aziraphale had a fear of falling.

One might think this was only natural, but the kind that filled him with apprehension was not the one that merited a capital F (though, obviously, every angel was uncomfortable with the thought of being asked to change his political party). No, it was the actual, literal sensation of crashing to earth: that visceral plunge, that vertigo.

He wasn’t sure where it came from, this horror. It was unmerited; he had neither fallen nor Fallen, though perhaps there was some subconscious connection between the two that informed his aversion. Regardless of origin, however, it was the reason he disliked flying so much, and, if he was being perfectly candid, the thing that haunted him still, over the long centuries, when he remembered his wretched flight across the Bay of Bengal, and his certainty that he would tumble out of the sky and –

– and what? He didn’t know. He didn’t want to find out. He had no intention of ever finding out, in fact.

God Herself only knew how the aversion had shaped his life. It had certainly been part of his private justification for traveling the Atlantic on the _Albatross,_ three hundred years previous. Reluctance to take any risks aloft had made him accept an equally perilous invitation.

In sharp contrast, however, the great winged thing under his breastbone, the creature that beat its wings furiously in answer to the proximity of Crowley, was not nearly so cautious. It demanded to be free. It wanted to leap into the air and fly until it couldn’t any more.

Tonight, looking up at the shimmering lights in the North, Aziraphale wondered if his wariness at the idea of flight had ever been merited.

All the idioms whispered that these feelings were like _falling_ , of course. Across cultures, the turns of phrase insinuated that it was frightening, that it made the person blind, that only fools rushed in. But over the last year, the times when he had acknowledged his sentiments to himself had always carried a kind of weightlessness, a thing that made his corporation feel as light as the wind.

Nor was these feelings new. No, in some ways they were as old as the oceans themselves – and in his mind’s eye he saw Crowley as he had been, three hundred years ago: the Crowley who had been so self-satisfied at the tiller of a freshly acquired boat, the Crowley who had reached for him in a maelstrom, the Crowley who had taught him about relative distance and the stars –

As if hearing his thoughts, the demon moved so that his arm nudged up against the angel’s.

“Do you remember,” Crowley began, and Aziraphale said, immediately,

“Yes.”

He was aware of the demon biting back a smile, even in the dark.

“You don’t know what I’m thinking of.”

“I’m certain I do.”

They stood in companionable silence for a little while, and then Aziraphale began, “It was within the next century, you know,” just as Crowley started to say,

“The night that we almost –”

They both stopped. Aziraphale felt himself blush.

“Within the next century,” Crowley said slowly.

“Yes,” said the angel, feeling horribly wrongfooted. “I was thinking of, um. Well, you taught me about parallax, and so I kept an eye out for it.”

“I did tell you they’d figure it out.”

“I recall.”

“Who was it?”

“Friedrich Bessel.”

“One of yours?”

“One of yours.”

They stood together for another minute. _Almost,_ Aziraphale was repeating to himself silently. Yes, they had _almost,_ hadn't they. Though that had been a different evening altogether.

And then Crowley sighed.

“Come on,” he said. “Let’s call it a night.”

*

“– can’t believe that I _let_ myself believe that you were trying to be _helpful!_ When you absolutely –”

“– not a big deal, we’ll just –”

“ – knew what you were doing, didn’t you? You couldn’t just let me book passage on a ship, you had to – ”

“ – an act of God and you can just tell them it was _ineffable_ –”

“ – and I fell for it, I actually didn’t even suspect you, which I can’t –”

“ – not like they’re going to tell you to – wait, what are you on about?”

“It was a temptation,” said Aziraphale furiously. “An elaborate ruse, to delay me. You played on my weaknesses, you used yourself to _bait_ me –”

He stopped. He didn’t understand the abrupt play of emotion on Crowley’s face, or the answering bloom of color high on his cheeks, strange on that pale face.

“What?” he snapped.

“Nothing,” said Crowley instantly, but that startled, shy, unfurling wonder could not be concealed, even though he turned his head away at once.

“ _What?_ ” said Aziraphale, livid.

“ _Nothing,_ ” said Crowley, who was very definitely pink now. “Listen, can you just – just calm down for a moment –”

“I think you’ll find that I’m remarkably calm, for someone who just discovered that they’ve been _manipulated –_ ”

“I didn’t –” The demon stopped, as if he had just remembered something, and swallowed. “I wasn’t trying to get in the way, Aziraphale. I haven’t tried to get in the way of your work for over five hundred years. Not since the Arrangement. All right? I swear it. That’s not what I was trying to do.”

The angel glowered. “Then elaborate, please. What were you _trying_ to do? Because I would bet that you don’t even have work in the Americas.”

“Ah – well,” said Crowley, and for the first time, he looked a bit green. “That doesn’t seem relevant, does it?”

The fury was instantaneous, all-encompassing. “Oh my God,” said Aziraphale, shocked. “You _don’t!_ ”

“Aziraphale,” the demon began, and then all of the air seemed to go out of him, leaving him deflated.

“You _deceived_ me –”

“Well, that cuts both ways, doesn’t it?” said Crowley, mysteriously.

There was no possible answer to this. Aziraphale stuttered for a minute, and the demon went on, his own anger visibly rising. “Because you are impossible to read, in case you didn’t know.”

“Imp – what –”

The words wouldn’t come out in any intelligible order, but it didn’t matter. Crowley was raising his voice again, talking over him, crowding him towards the starboard side of the boat –

“It must be what it’s like to be a human astronomer right now, really. No accurate measurements, nothing but – but guesswork and a crick in the neck –”

“I haven’t the foggiest notion what you mean,” said Aziraphale waspishly.

“No, of course you don’t,” Crowley snapped back at him. “You wouldn’t dream of telling me. But –”

Words failed him. He gesticulated for a long, helpless moment. Then, holding up a thumb, the way he had on the night they had discussed parallax, he stepped forward until it brushed against Aziraphale’s mouth.

Shock speared through the angel. He might have flinched away, but he was caught by the railing. Despite the lightness of the touch, he found that he was somehow effectively pinned by it.

Crowley’s eyes were very bright.

“I’m never sure,” the demon breathed, “of how far away you are.”

It was a nonsensical statement. They had never, in their long acquaintance, been physically closer than they were at that moment. Aziraphale was hideously aware of the rock of the boat, which could dump him into Crowley’s arms at any moment, and the sensation of the pad of the slender thumb against his lips, and that furious, ceaseless beating of wings under his breastbone –

That voice was still quiet. “There’s no one here, angel. It’s just you, me, and the _Albatross._ ”

He had the strangest feeling that the sheer force of the wingbeats might cause him to fall again, and this time, he might never stop falling –

“It’s not a temptation,” his captor said. “It’s just a question.” As if to punctuate this, the thumb dipped, insistent, erotic, between his lips – and for one astonishing, profane instant, Aziraphale tasted the salt of Crowley’s skin. “I know there’s nothing I can really say to make you believe that, but – look. Unless the answer is yes, I’ll stop asking.”

He paused. Then spoke again.

A question.

A question, to which Aziraphale, stunned, could find no reply.

They looked at each other for a long moment, and then the demon took his hand away, looking tired.

“All right,” he said. “I’ll let it go.”

*

There was something quiet reverberating between them on the way back to the room. It might have been the ethereal beauty of the aurora, which, Aziraphale knew, was still dancing and twisting overhead. Then again, it might have been the way Crowley’s voice sounded, when he said the words _the night that we almost,_ a sharp-edged phrase, but for the fact that it had somehow been softened by a demon’s mouth.

Claiming a chill, he stepped into the bathroom and tried to rinse off his burgeoning guilt in the heat of their rain shower. Much time had passed between now and then, he told himself sternly, under the steady cascade of water. Still, the tone of Crowley’s voice had released a wellspring of other memories: the feeling of a thermos, as he waited in a dark car in Soho; the cold mud of a trench in the Somme, red as poppies; the first light of a pleasant morning, illuminating black graffiti on the Berlin Wall.

Crowley, true to his word, had never asked again, although he had come dangerously close.

He thought again of the terrible words they had exchanged during the (almost) end of the world. Under a heavy sky, they had argued until they had come to a standstill, and Crowley had gestured to the heavens and come within a hairsbreadth of actually saying it again.

Aziraphale had struggled to find the right way to rebuff him, even as the memory of a thumb had pressed hotly against his lips. He knew exactly what was being offered to him; and yet, even then, he had still worried that it was a temptation.

It had not been, of course. Crowley himself had said it. It had always simply been a question. No more, no less.

A few days later, around midnight, on a bus rattling down the road to London, Aziraphale had finally found the courage to tell him the answer.

He turned off the water, and stepped out of the shower, toweling his hair. Crowley’s eyes traveled up from his laptop screen, and snagged on him.

“Stop that,” said Aziraphale, secretly pleased.

“I’m a demon,” said Crowley, closing his computer with a snap and lying back on the bed in one long, lovely, wanton arch. “I don’t have to _stop_ anything.”

“You’ve been utterly shameless all day.”

“Can you blame me?” said Crowley, still stretching. “This is a demon’s paradise.”

“Speaking of.” Tearing his eyes away, the angel pushed aside a number of gold-foil-stamped truffle boxes until their loveseat had at least enough room to sit. “Are we going to discuss the nature of this holiday at all?”

The demon stilled, which was unusual enough that it was a kind of response, in its own way. “Discuss what?”

“I would,” Aziraphale said, very carefully, as he settled into the cushions, and reached for a tray of raspberry crèmes, “quantify this as something not unlike a ‘pleasure cruise.’” He selected a chocolate, and inspected it. “To use your own phrasing.”

Crowley remained motionless for another moment, and then he sighed, and sat up again.

“Fine, you win,” he said. “It was something I’ve been thinking about – trying to get right. Since we, you know.” He gestured, mimicking a bomb exploding. It might have been a reference to Armageddon. Then again, the angel thought, it might not.

Uneasiness was making him feel a bit sick, even tainting the flavor of the truffle. “You didn't need to do that. You got it right the first time. I - I have often regretted that I never thanked you.”

Crowley looked at him, genuinely shocked. “ _Thanked_ me?”

“You got us a ship. In three days, no less.” The crème was perfect, he told himself sternly; the filling tart, the shell silky-sweet. But it was no use. It tasted like dust in his mouth. “It was marvelous of you.”

“Angel, we were hardly speaking to each other by the end of the journey – you were hardly about to _thank_ me –”

“Even so.”

“ – you were _furious_ with me.”

“I wasn’t _furious,_ I was –”

“Oh, _please._ ”

“I was infatuated with you,” said Aziraphale.

Crowley looked at him, eyebrows raised, and he found that he couldn’t meet the yellow eyes; instead, he set the other half of the crème back in its wrapper, and then, summoning his courage, confessed to the box of chocolates in his lap.

“Even then, you know. I was. And I was terrified of the feeling.” He paused for a moment, and then added softly, without lifting his gaze, “Sometimes I still am, now and then.”

“I know,” said Crowley.

The angel jerked his head up, and stared at him.

Under his palpable shock, Crowley cleared his throat, and looked away. “Well, it makes sense, doesn’t it? We’re not used to being –” and spots of color flowered high in his cheeks, as his gaze drifted to his hand, sketching fruitlessly in the air. Abruptly, he changed the word he was about to use. “Free. Especially in your case.”

It was as easy as that: no recrimination, no reproach. Crowley understood. It was going to take some time to get used to, that was all. And they had all the time in the world.

They sat for a minute. The demon fiddled with the tassels on a throw pillow as Aziraphale told his corporation, very sternly, that it needed to pull itself together.

“Well, anyway,” he said at last, through the tightness in his throat. “I do remember it fondly, despite – everything. It was a wonderful voyage.”

Crowley managed to smile at him. “I really didn’t expect you to agree to it.”

“Two months at the mercy of a demon.” He smiled, too, at the memory. “Yes, it was very brave of me, wasn’t it?”

“Brave of _you?_ I’m the one who had to find us a ship, who had to come up with a plan –”

“Well,” said Aziraphale. “Part of a plan. You didn’t even know how to sail.” A horrible thought occurred. “Crowley, please tell me you know how to drive the Bentley.”

“I do,” said Crowley, offended. “I even put petrol in it once.”

“ _Once_ –”

“Listen, I refuse to take criticisms about driving from someone who is still longing to be toted everywhere in a, a little phaeton, like some kind of celestial Catherine de Bourgh –”

This was too much. Aziraphale sputtered for a moment, and then started to laugh. “You _have_ read Jane Austen, I _knew_ it –”

“Lies and slander,” said Crowley, but he was now looking at Aziraphale with that slanted, almost invisible smile that meant he was incandescently happy, and the angel could not bear it a second longer; he put down his box of chocolates and crossed the room to him, and if the ties of his dressing-gown were mysteriously unwinding as he went, there were no mortals to see it.

*

It was the awkwardness that Aziraphale had feared.

They didn’t speak to each other, had not in weeks. With the exception of a few terse words as they traded shifts, the cessation of one miracle replaced by a new power moving the boat westward, the remainder of the long voyage had been, thus far, utterly silent.

It wasn’t that Aziraphale didn’t _want_ to speak. Questions rose in him almost by the minute. The way Crowley had traced the bow of his lips; the tired, resigned way he had spoken; the taste of salt on the pad of his thumb – all of these things were combining to make Aziraphale almost frantic with curiosity. What had he meant, when he said he didn’t know how _far away_ the angel was? And what had he meant on earth had he meant to instigate by asking that impossible question?

But Crowley clearly did not want to discuss it. He held himself as rigidly as a coiled serpent, tense and unhappy, and something in Aziraphale was reluctant to provoke another strike. (More accurately, something in him wondered whether Crowley would pin him to the railing and do more than just brush a thumb against his lips, but his mounting obsession with the idea was not something that ought to be indulged).

Consequently, they kept their wary distance, until at last land was visible on the horizon, and Aziraphale could draw a deep breath of mingled regret and relief.

Still Crowley did not speak.

His navigation had been accurate enough to bring them to the mouth of the James River. The shoreline grew clearer and clearer, and then, eventually, the waters surrounding them became more crowded. Over the course of the morning, moving more slowly now, they steered their careful way between fishermen and larger ships, finding their way into the bay and out of the open water.

A boat slightly smaller than their own cut them off, at one point, and the grizzled face behind the tiller turned towards them curiously. They were close enough that Aziraphale could see the bewilderment in the human’s expression, and, all at once, he imagined the _Albatross_ through a stranger’s eyes: the sails all ahoo, the knots that had no place in a nautical world, the wind that declined to fill their canvas properly.

As if hampered by the sudden spike of human curiosity, the boat slowed. Aziraphale caught Crowley’s eye. Irritably, the demon let the miracle subside; and their ship bobbed haplessly in the water as it came abreast of the waiting fishing skiff, at which point its grizzled captain raised his voice and hailed them.

“Ahoy, there,” he called. “Had some ill weather, have ye?”

“Hello!” Aziraphale called back. “Yes – er – bit of a run of bad luck, I think.” He was acutely aware of Crowley grim and silent behind him, but he soldiered on. “We weathered the most _frightful_ storm.”

“It en’t stormed here in a month, at least,” said the fisherman suspiciously. “Come from afar, eh?”

“Oh, you might say that. We’ve just come from England, you see, and we really didn’t –”

“What?”

“For the love of – ” Crowley muttered, and then cut himself off, raising his own voice. “You know, _New_ England,” he called. “Isn’t that what they’re calling the northern colonies?”

The fisherman puzzled over this for a moment. Aware that he had misstepped, Aziraphale glanced behind him again, trying to communicate his thanks silently to Crowley, but this time the demon refused to return his gaze.

“Going to Jamestown, are ye?” the fisherman said eventually.

“My associate is,” Crowley said, curt to the point of being rude. Then he added, “I personally have business elsewhere.”

This was new. This was not something they had discussed. Searching the demon’s face, Aziraphale wondered what _business_ meant (or _associate,_ for that matter). He still had no idea if Crowley actually did have an assignment on this continent. Was he late for some infernal endeavor? Or did he just want to get Aziraphale off the _Albatross_ as soon as possible?

“In fact, what an excellent idea,” Crowley continued, as if he had spoken. “Angel, why don’t you head into port with this fellow? I’m sure he’d appreciate the _blessing_ of your company.”

The turn of phrase was needlessly caustic, and Aziraphale ignored it. “I wouldn’t want to trouble him.”

“No trouble,” said the fisherman easily. “Assuming you’ve got a bit of coin to pay your way.” He laughed, rubbing at his bristly chin. “Don’t hold much with blessings, these days.”

“Oh, well, unfortunately, I –” Aziraphale began, and then stopped; Crowley had rooted into a pocket and was holding up a fat silk purse.

Well. That settled that, then.

The business of getting a discomfited angel down the side of a boat and into a fishing skiff took no little finagling. Aziraphale’s trousers were soaked through in minutes, but he didn’t dare perform a miracle to dry himself off, at such close quarters with a human – though he did subtly heal the various cuts and scrapes that he acquired from the descent. Still, the thing that stung the most was Crowley’s cursory dismissal, from the cutter, once he had been situated.

“Well, that’s that, then. I’m sure I’ll see you around, angel.”

"I -" Aziraphale began, wondering if he should offer his thanks.

But no. It was already too late.

The boats parted. As the skiff pulled away, he found that he could not tear his eyes away from Crowley’s face. The demon looked back at him, the corners of his mouth turned downward.

Then he held up his thumb. It might have been a meaningless gesture.

(It wasn’t.)

“Wossat then?” said the boater, watching.

“It’s – nothing.” said Aziraphale. The imperative to lie was strong; even stronger than it had been in, once, during a mild interrogation about a flaming sword. “It means everything’s fine.”

*

Somewhere in the Atlantic: a wide bed, in the bowels of a wider ship. Someone with a telescope and the right vantage point might have been able to see it, through the cabin porthole: a mouth, sealed against the mast of a collarbone; the slow, undulating movements of cresting waves; flanks shivering like sails in a high wind. But, happily, beyond the slender pane, there was nothing but the vast and sightless sea.

In the honeymoon suite, Aziraphale pressed his lips against the cool white gold of Crowley’s ring, and Crowley shuddered and dropped his head until their sweaty temples met.

“Someone – told me today,” the angel murmured. “That albatrosses mate for life.”

“Do they?” Crowley managed to say. “That’s fascssss –” and Aziraphale felt his jaw moving, the hiss spasming, the loss of control. “Neat.”

“Yes, they – _ah!_ – yes – a half century or more.” He could hear his own words stuttering, the sentiment garbled.

“A – amateurs,” and Aziraphale’s breathless, answering laugh was cut off, for a long minute.

“My dear,” he said, insistent, when he could talk again.

“Angel, how can you –” Crowley said, despairing.

“No, it’s just,” Aziraphale said, though he was still struggling to get enough air. “I want to know if you knew - the name -”

Crowley sighed against his throat, and then said, “Nah.” The sharp teeth nipped at his jaw, gently. “Just needed a ship.”

“You didn’t _need_ it,” said the angel, attempting to be stern, although it was undercut by a full-body shiver when the teeth became a flickering tongue. “You didn’t even – _hah_ – have an assignment.”

Crowley had the nerve to revive the old lie, right into the shell of his ear. “I was _improvising_ an assignment, angel. Hell was a _gnnnghn_ ,” and it took him a moment to reattempt the word as the angel moved. “Gig economy, back then. Sometimes you had to take the initiative yourself, and I –”

“You enormous fibber.” Aziraphale, outraged, delighted, lit up with love, turned to capture his husband’s mouth again. A few seconds later, he finished the thought. “You did it all for me.”

“All right, fine,” said the demon, grudgingly, softened with the intensity of the kiss. “That too.”

“Like this honeymoon suite.” He was suddenly certain. “There was no other couple, was there? You booked it for us.”

“I would never,” Crowley said firmly, “and I mean _never,_ confess to doing a thing like that.”

“We agreed on no honeymoon, you absolute scoundrel.”

“ ‘S your own fault. Can’t tell a demon not to do things. Like putting a big Don’t Touch sign on a tree in the middle of a garden, I mean, what kind of –”

In answer to this stream of blasphemy, Aziraphale moved, turning them both so that Crowley was on his back. The demon blinked up at him, his yellow eyes slanted with affection, and for a moment the angel’s breath was stolen by the image he made, as lovely here as he had been on the deck of a spanking new cutter, long ago.

 _It’s always far better to_ _cherish_ _something._

He was not afraid.

He thought he was rather tired of being afraid, really.

“Angel,” Crowley said softly.

Aziraphale kissed him again, because he could, and the fact alone was glorious. Then he asked the question. It was an infinitely precious question; it was the one that he himself had once been asked, aboard that other ship.

“Soppy old snake,” he murmured. “Do you want this?”

“Aziraphale, you bloody great tease, if you don’t – _nnnnngh_ –”

Yes, he was quite certain now that the idioms were all wrong.

Love wasn’t like falling at all. It was like flying.


End file.
